Ground Zero

  “It’s the gut shot,” Joe said numbly. The microphone to NORAD was still live.

  “The gut shot?” General Kelton said.

  “The gut shot,” Joe repeated. “The body blow. The kidney punch. You know. Chicago, Illinois. We play that one all the time. You take out the industrial heartland. You take Chicago you poison Detroit, Gary, Indiana, all the industrial centers. Then the fallout drifts over Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York. America loses her industrial capacity all in one strike. Not too good for crops in the Midwest, either.”

  “Oh my god,” Eileen said faintly.

  “Much more effective than the decapitation strike,” Lucy murmured.

  “Decapitation?” Eileen whispered.

  “Of course,” Joe said. “Decapitation is Washington, D.C., Eileen. Take out the federal government and supposedly you destroy our country. Cut off the head, you kill the body. But anyone who does their homework knows we don’t really depend on Washington D.C.”

  “Bomb Washington D.C. and you just piss the hell out of America,” Stillwell said, nodding. “And you don’t have much of a chance of getting the President. They can get him out of Washington fast. You can’t decapitate us, not really.”

  “Well it would hurt pretty bad,” Lucy murmured, and Eileen remembered the other woman was from Washington.

  “We’ll let the President know. God grant those Pebbles will work,” the General said over the loudspeaker, startling them all. “God grant we were in time.”

  Turtkul, Turkmenistan

  “You think this was the guy?” the soldier asked, rolling the body over with his toe. The arms flopped limply and the eyes gazed at the brilliant sky. The eyes blinked; the man was still alive, but he wouldn’t be for long. The blood was pouring out of three bullet wounds in the chest.

  “He doesn’t look like a leader,” the other soldier said doubtfully. “He’s too young.”

  “Maybe this guy,” one of them said to the other, going to the other body lying limply in the dirt.

  Behind them, Muallah gazed at the sky. It was a brilliant and beautiful blue. The faint contrail of the missile crossed one side of his vision. He would have liked to move his eyes to see if he could see the missile still climbing into the heavens, but his eyes no longer obeyed him.

  He would go to Allah, and that would be good. He would bring with him all the souls of the American infidels to be his slaves. Allah had decided that Muallah was not to be the leader of the new Arab empire, and that was the will of Allah. Muallah had fulfilled his jitan, his holy mission, and that, too was the will of Allah.

  Allah Akhbar, he tried to whisper, but the sky was growing dark around him, swirling in black flakes like the fires that would consume the Western world. Allah Akhbar.

  Air Force One

  “Hold on,” the Secret Service agent said. The plane didn’t just bank; for a moment Richard thought he was going to pass out as he was pressed deeply into his seat.

  “Secondary sanctuary is Florida,” the Secret Service agent said through compressed lips. Air Force One was doing a complete reversal in mid-air, turning on her tail and fleeing back in the direction from which she had come.

  “Maine wasn’t such a good idea after all, I guess,” Steve said, his eyes sparkling with excitement. He loved roller coaster rides. Not that he’d had a chance to ride on any in the past three years. The Secret Service would simply not hear of it.

  “Oh my God, Chicago,” the President said. Richard tried to pat Dad’s arm, but his own arm wouldn’t leave the seat. Dad was a terrible ashy color. Nobody else looked very good either, and it wasn’t because of the g-forces.

  “We have the Brilliant Pebbles, sir,” the Secretary of Defense said, with a grotesque attempt at confidence.

  “I hope they work,” the President said, and blinked rapidly. He bowed his head, and for a moment Richard couldn’t figure out what he was doing. Then he realized his father was praying.

  Moscow, The Russian Republic

  Kalashnikov could not bear to look at the American. But he could not live with himself if he did not. The Command Center was sick with tension. The radio communications link was open, but was silent except for a slight hiss of static. The roar of the missile launch had been clearly audible over the link. The projected impact had come in a scant two minutes later. The United States. After that, everyone had fallen into a helpless silence.

  “General Cherepovitch,” Major Paxton said abruptly. His words were slurred and drawn out, as though he was speaking an entirely different language than English. Oddly enough, Kalashnikov had recently seen Gone With the Wind in the theatre and recognized the accent immediately. Kalashnikov looked at Paxton and saw the Major’s face was pale and his lips were bitten to a bloodless line. His precise and unaccented English was gone, but his eyes were still sane.

  “Major Paxton,” Cherepovitch responded formally.

  “We must prevent war between our countries,” Major Paxton said. For a moment Kalashnikov didn’t understand what he meant; in Paxton’s accent, thick with stress, “War” had come out as “Wah.”

  Cherepovitch bowed his head. Kalishnikov realized his palms were damp and stinging. His fingernails had bitten through the skin. Was this to be the end? Not just the end of Salekhard, democracy, clean water and food and opportunity, but the end of everything?

  Like the films his wife so loved to see, Kalashnikov could see the course of disaster. A Russian missile destroying an American city. A million dead, thousands more screaming in blind, burned agony. Thick radioactive ash falling over American soil, killing animals and plants, sickening children. All of it on television, all of it traceable to a Russian missile silo, a Russian bomb. Would the terrorist who launched the missile matter, in the end? Or would the American people, mad for revenge, demand a response? Kalashnikov squeezed his fingers in his palms and felt the warm stinging of blood. He looked at Major Paxton and saw the man looking back at him with haunted, sickened eyes. They both knew there would have to be a response, and the result would lead to war.

  “We will help you however we can,” Cherepovitch said simply.

  “I would have done the same as you,” Paxton said heavily, reluctantly. “I would not choose to save my country over the bodies of your women and children. You did your best.”

  “We did our best,” Cherepovitch said. “I’m sorry that it was not enough.”

  Gaming Center, Schriever Air Force Base

  “Come on,” Joe said. They looked at the main console, watching the missile track grow and grow. He typed rapidly on the commander’s console, a frown pinching his forehead. Eileen looked on helplessly. Lucy and Stillwell stood with their hands at their sides.

  “Everything is enabled. They have to get an intercept solution. They have to!” Joe said.

  “It’s almost to the Pole,” said a voice from NORAD.

  For an eternity they stood, staring at the growing black track. Eileen thought of the babies being born in Chicago hospitals, the cops patrolling neighborhoods and chasing drug dealers and prostitutes and doing their best to keep the streets just a little bit safe, just a little bit sane, and this insanity was flaming toward them and it wasn’t stopping. There were late night restaurants and millions of people sleeping sweetly in their homes and they were going to die, all of them, if that curve didn’t stop growing. There had to be something else they could do.

  “Is there something else we can do?” Stillwell asked, his face in agony. Joe put his hands to the sides of his face and shook his head back and forth, eyes stricken. Lucy choked back a sob.

  “Come on, baby, come on!” Eileen suddenly shouted. She couldn’t stand it any more. “Come on baby, find that bastard. Come on!”

  Lucy glanced at Eileen and then shook her fists at the screen, grinning wildly.

  “Comeon Comeon Comeon!” she shouted.

  “Find the ball, baby,” Joe shouted, jumping up and down and laughing. “Find the fucking ball, baby, you can do it!”

  There
was nothing from the speaker at NORAD; perhaps they thought this weird set of Gamers had gone completely off the deep end.

  Stillwell joined in, his face flushing red.

  “Go for it, man,” he shouted in a hoarse voice. “Go for it!”

  Eileen started laughing. They were all shouting at the computer screens, screaming at them, and it wasn’t doing a damn thing but it felt good, it felt like they were doing something.

  She was looking at the center screen when there was a flash of brilliant light. The light was nearly blinding. The whole room lit up fiercely, and then the light was gone.

  “Did you see that?” she gasped. They all stared at the screen, silent and still in an instant.

  “Yes,” Joe said.

  “Yes,” Stillwell said.

  “Yes!” Lucy shouted.

  The gray splotch over Chicago, the projected impact point, disappeared without any fanfare. One moment it was there, the next it was gone.

  “The missile has been shot down,” Joe said quietly, voice trembling. He looked at his console and typed rapidly for a few moments.

  “This is NORAD,” General Kelton said from the speaker. His voice sounded shaky and young, like a boy’s voice. “Can you confirm what we’re showing?”

  “I can confirm it, sir,” Joe said. “No threats are in the air.”

  “The skies are clear?” Lucy asked, her face unbelieving. “Clear?”

  “All clear,” Joe said.

  The speaker from NORAD erupted with shouts and cheers, but Eileen paid no attention. She was kissing Joe, and Lucy, and even Alan Stillwell who was rank and sweaty and dirty but she didn’t care, they had done it. The Earth floated on the big screen, pure and blue.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Memorial Hospital, Colorado Springs

  When Lucy parked her rental car the sky was beginning to lighten, although it wasn't yet five o'clock. The bulk of Pike's Peak blocked out the stars to the west, clearly visible in the light of the false dawn. Lucy lingered for a moment, breathing the clear morning air, then headed for the entrance doors to Memorial Hospital.

  “Yes?” The nurse behind the Emergency Room admitting desk looked tired.

  “I'm looking for Detective Reed,” Lucy said politely. “She should have come in here a little bit ago.”

  An orderly coming down the hall heard the conversation and stopped at the desk.

  “Sure, Eileen,” he said. “She’s with a suspect. They've got police guards. Guzman,” he said to the nurse. The nurse nodded back.

  “They're up on the third floor, where we have the prisoners’ rooms.”

  “Thanks,” Lucy said politely.

  “Waiting rooms are to the left,” the orderly said helpfully as Lucy walked towards the elevators.

  Moscow, The Russian Republic

  The room smelled of desperate and unexpected victory, stinking with sweat and bad breath and the sharp tang of vodka. In respect for the rules, Cherepovitch had only allowed one shot for each soldier. Alcohol was strictly forbidden in GRU headquarters.

  “It’s the size of the damn glasses that gets me,” Major Paxton said to Kalashnikov, one of Cherepovitch’s cigars clenched in his still trembling fingers. “You think they’re such tiny little things, and the next thing you know you’re singing and being dragged along the street by your friends because you can’t walk anymore.”

  Kalashnikov laughed, but not loudly. He was still shaky from reaction. They were sitting in the upper control room, a booth where cable news played around the clock. Hours, it had been, and nothing had leaked. The biggest story was the American tour of the Polish rock band Night, now singing to sell-out crowds and being likened to the British invasion of the Beatles.

  “Every new band gets compared to the Beatles,” Paxton said. “When I was a kid the Bay City Rollers were compared to the Beatles, for goddsake.”

  “Who?” asked Kalashnikov.

  “So tell me, Major,” Cherepovitch said casually. “Why do you think the weapon misfunctioned?”

  “Could be the guidance systems were corroded somehow,” Paxton mused. “Or faulty to begin with. I’m sure our entire fleet of nuclear missiles – what’s left of them – are going to be overhauled starting immediately. I’m sure you’ll do the same.”

  “You wouldn’t, perhaps, have shot it down, would you?” Cherepovitch asked, taking a puff on his cigar and squinting his eyes as though he was telling a joke.

  Paxton threw his head back and laughed.

  “You don’t get off that easy,” he said. “Our missile defenses were never installed, remember? We made up Star Wars to end the arm’s race, not to actually build the damn thing.” Paxton put his cigar in his teeth and put an arm around Cherepovitch and his other arm around Kalashnikov. He gave them both an unexpected and very Russian bear hug.

  “We were damn lucky, that’s all,” he said.

  Memorial Hospital, Colorado Springs

  Eileen was slouched in a chair in the waiting room, trying to read a magazine. Stillwell, who was grimacing and sipping at some very old coffee, looked up.

  “Did you get the Pickle home safe?” Lucy asked. Stillwell had dropped her at the hotel before returning Gwen’s car to the airport.

  “Safe and sound,” Stillwell said, grinning. Eileen snorted.

  “I can’t believe you got that thing to go over twenty.”

  “Gwen was amazed too,” Stillwell said.

  “Where’s Joe?” Lucy asked.

  “At home,” Eileen said. “I took him home. He needed the sleep. And he didn’t want to talk to Lowell.”

  “I can understand why,” Lucy said. “And Blaine?”

  “Safe in custody at Peterson,” Stillwell said with satisfaction. “Now all we have to do is figure out why Blaine was trying to shoot Lowell.”

  “That’s all we have to do now,” Lucy said. She saw her smile answered in her new friend’s faces. Even though none of them had gotten any sleep that night, they were still all on a high. Saving the world was better than sleep.

  “Blaine won’t talk, right?”

  “Oh, he talked,” Stillwell said. “He sounded like a lawyer trying to beat a speeding ticket. He kept telling me he thought Lowell was armed, he thought Lowell was threatening Eileen, blah blah blah. I don’t buy it.”

  “I don’t either,” Eileen said. “Hey, is that a package of Oreo cookies?” Lucy looked down into the open mouth of her handbag.

  “Hey, so they are. You want some?”

  “The vending machine is out of order,” Stillwell explained.

  Lucy shared out the cookies and sat down with a sigh.

  “Somebody give me background,” she said. “Eileen, how about you?”

  “Lowell should be coming around pretty soon. They said it was only a concussion,” Stillwell said. “I want the story too, if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind,” Eileen said, crunching into an Oreo. “You told us all ‘bout that Muallah creep, anyway.”

  “Let’s just call him the Creep,” Lucy winced, looking around the very unsecured waiting room. She’d told the story of Fouad Muallah and his Trumpet of Doom during the wait for Colonel Willmeth and the rest of the Schriever cavalry.

  Eileen Reed would have made a great CIA analyst, Lucy decided, even if she was beautiful the way Lucy usually detested; long limbed, straight dark reddish hair, gorgeous cheekbones. Still, she had an incredible brain behind all of those good looks.

  “Well I’m glad the Creep is dead,” Eileen said with satisfaction, sipping at her coffee. “You know, it’s too bad he never knew all his great plans were foiled by a woman.”

  “A woman?” Lucy asked in confusion. Joe Tanner wasn’t a woman.

  “You, Lucy Giometti, you know?” Eileen said, as though it were obvious. “We and the Russians both were alerted to the whole situation in time to stop him from getting away, if not stop him. And if you hadn’t been at Schriever we couldn’t have started up the system to stop --” here Eileen looked a
round cautiously -- “It.”

  Lucy smiled. “I never thought of it that way,” she admitted. “It’s almost too bad they didn’t catch him alive. I would have liked to see him realize he was beaten.”

  “For Sufi’s sake, if no one else’s,” Eileen said, and Lucy nodded, feeling an enormous rush of affection for her new friend. Eileen understood.

  “So what about Lowell and your investigation?” Stillwell asked. He hadn’t showered and was still remarkably filthy, but his raccoon eyes were intent. Lucy realized that his man, Blaine, was still not quite in the bag.

  “I'll fill you in up to tonight,” Eileen said. “My partner should be here before I'm done. I want him to hear what happened tonight. At least, the part about Lowell and Blaine.”

  They all exchanged grins, and Lucy felt the laughter bubbling up inside of her again.

  “Okay, I’ll start with Terry Guzman. She was murdered during the War Game this week, found with a sharpened screwdriver in her back...”

  Rosen showed up before Eileen was finished, carrying a bag of subs and a thermos full of coffee. He delivered the subs and shook hands with Lucy and Stillwell. Economical as always, he said nothing, but sat down in a chair and unwrapped his own sub.

  “I’m almost finished catching them up to tonight,” Eileen explained. Rosen nodded, and for a few minutes there was no talking at all.

  “Ahh, better,” Lucy sighed, after swallowing her last bite and crumpling up her sandwich paper. “Thank you for bringing those, Detective.” Rosen nodded gravely.

  “Okay, go on,” Lucy said. “This is incredible. You know Terry's contact was Major Blaine?”